Persons related to Chopin

Emanuel Ax

*8 VI 1949 Lwów

Emanuel Ax began to study piano with his father at the age of six. When he was eight the family moved to Warsaw and then two years later to Canada where he continued to study music. In 1961 the family moved to New York and Ax continued his studies at the Juilliard School of Music under Mieczysław Munz.

Ax performs works by contemporary composers such as John Adams, Christopher Rouse, also Sir Michael Tippett, Hans Werner Henze, Joseph Schwantner and Paul Hindemith, as well as Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin.

He regularly performs duo recitals with Yo-Yo Ma and also played quartets with him and violinists Isaac Stern and Jaime Laredo. Before the quartet had to disband in 2001 due to the death of Stern, they recorded works by Brahms, Fauré, Beethoven, Schumann and Mozart.